The following story was written by The Coaches Site member and regular TCS Live attendee Courtney King.
In June 2023, my partner Jodie, my hockey sidekick Kyle, and I headed out from Los Angeles to TCS Live in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I had been growing my business, Courtney King Hockey, for several years and I felt it was time to invest in some high level learning for us so we could bring the best product possible to our students. I was hoping for some cool new drills. What I got was the beginning of a movement.
One warm summer afternoon during the conference we settled in to listen to another coach speak, a cheery faced woman named Carla McLeod. Carla began to speak about leading the Czechia national women’s program and her philosophies on culture building. She focused on connecting with her players, investing in them as individuals, making sure they knew they mattered, and helping them to believe in themselves and each other.
I’m 44 now and once upon a time played high level youth hockey. When I was growing up, there weren’t any full time girls teams in California. I, like any of the other girls in California who wanted to play, played on boys teams and I was fortunate enough to play on the California Selects tournament team along with some future Women’s hockey legends. I however, didn’t go on to be a hockey legend. I had several offers from schools to play college, scholarship money ready to go (I still have the letters), but I couldn’t get it together to go. Fear, anxiety and self doubt got the best of me. I didn’t believe I mattered. I didn’t believe I was good enough.
Hearing Carla talk about what she was doing in Czechia made me think, “man…I really could have used a coach like her growing up.” A coach who was focused on positivity, learning from mistakes, and developing together. After the conference on the flight home, I talked it over with Jodie we thought, “Why can’t we try to do this? Why can’t we be the program that encourages and lifts up women hockey players?”
When we arrived back in Los Angeles we started putting together a plan for a women’s team that would be based on the principles Coach Carla had spoken about: a positive mindset, hard work, communication, and fun. We started by putting together two teams to play at the USA Hockey Adult Women’s National Championship in 2024. We had a 40+ team and a 21+ Tier 3 team. As we went through the journey of putting together the teams and preparing for the tournament, we saw our culture starting to grow. The two teams supported each other and showed up for each other. Players were lifting each other up and never tearing each other don. We had buy in on our positive plan and the 21s took that positivity all the way to the Championship…two years in a row.
We now have a community of over 100 women, have multiple teams and are able to present skills clinics and practices. We have players of all different levels of experience from beginner to former pro. We also partnered with the non profit organization The Empowerment Effect to create a camp for girls completely staffed and coached by women. Inspired by Coach Carla we’re building a romp (that’s what you call a group of Sea Otters) that is making a positive impact on the women’s hockey world and the world of women and girls all over Southern California and beyond.
We are so grateful to TCS Live for bringing Coach Carla into our lives. The SoCal Sea Otters are such an important part of our lives and we hope to continue to spread Coach Carla’s message of positivity and belief that individuals are worth investing in on and off the ice. Thank you, Coach. You will always be part of the Romp.
